Those High Paid Teachers

About a month ago, I shared an email that circulates periodically among teachers. It speculates about how a dentist would react if subjected to the professional degradation that is routine for teachers under NCLB. Here's another one that makes the rounds occasionally:

SICK OF THOSE HIGH PAID TEACHERS

I, for one, am sick and tired of those high paid teachers. Their hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do...baby-sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right...I would give them $3.00 an hour and only for the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time. That would be $15 a day. Each parent should pay $15 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now, how many do they teach in a day.... maybe 25? Then that's $15 X 25=$375 a day. But remember they only work 180 days a year! I'm not going
to pay them for any vacations.

Let's see... that's 375 X 180 = $67,500.00

(Hold on, my calculator must need batteries! The average teacher salary is $40,000.)

What about those special teachers or the ones with master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage just to be fair. Let's round it off to $6.00 an hour. That would be $6 X 5 hours X 25 children X 180 days = $135,000.00 per year.

Wait a minute, there is something wrong here!!! Teachers would earn more if we just paid them to baby sit!!